Who Cares?
by Prosper-the-XVIII
Summary: Scars series part four. It was just a piece of sadistic irony that her oldest and possibly dearest friend Tiago Rodriguez, the only 00 with a pathological fear of torture, had never found out what had happened to her over those near fatal three days in Rennes. M/Silva


**I have other things I should be updating but...**

**Yes, more of the 'Scars' series. I needed some Silva/M and as that doesn't work when they are as you see them in Skyfall, it's happening here. Yeah, baby! You know the drill, M is Evelyn, Silva is Tiago etc. There's a lot of depressing irony in here, just as a warning. AANNDD for those who have read 'What's Left Behind'; see if from this you can work out how M's leg breaks so easily.**

* * *

It had taken time for Evelyn to recuperate fully, and a lot of it. Tears had been shed, hearts (namely her own; Matthew had left merely two weeks following her last episode **A/N Only Time Will Heal**) broken and blood spilt, but a year following her torture she was quite literally back on her feet, the same in the emotional department.

She had seen the damage done to agents over the space of months; in the darkest scenarios - a year at the hands of a Korean torture camp or months subjected to whatever hell the Mafia saw fit to get information from you - people had been brain damaged, lost limbs and even in the worst lives, whether to injuries or hydrogen cyanide it varied, but perhaps because it had been her own weeks of suffering and year of recovery and hallucinations, the worst case of injuries sustained from torture had to have been her own. She had lost over four litres of blood – not actually meant to be possible, - chipped bones in her arms, had the muscle structure in her left knee destroyed by three depleted uranium shells; her other leg smashed to a point that not even hours of surgery could turn back the damage and so would leave her shin and ankle twisted slightly and liable to break under even slight falls or side-on impact and of course been shot nearly forty times over three days. Those experienced in the field of torture would have known automatically that this would kill far too quickly from blood loss or sheer shock, but though the woman responsible for Evelyn's suffering, Camille Delacour, had lived through the same variety of hell herself and thus had ended her CIA career, the three inner members of an armed and highly dangerous drugs cartel, Déjà vu, or so they called themselves, hadn't seemed to pick up on this fact.

But it was just a piece of sadistic irony that her oldest and possibly dearest friend (and on/off boyfriend,) Tiago 'Silva' (the Portuguese thirty-something was so-called for his platinum blonde hair) Rodriguez, the only 00 with a pathological fear of torture, had never found out what had happened to her over those near fatal three days in Rennes. But her new appointment to Chief of Staff in Hong Kong was going to change all that, and soon.

"Evelyn?" She instantly recognized that deep, sexy accent. "They said that I was being sent to a new Chief of Staff, but I never realized that-"  
"Tiago," as she stood up from behind her desk to the accomplished 003, her eyes lit up. "What the bloody hell did you do to your hair?"  
"You don't like it?" Tiago self-consciously ran his hand through his short blonde waves, letting them fall gently over his forehead. "Apparently I looked like I'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. Where have you been? I missed you!"

Evelyn walked round her desk to the agent she was meant to be debriefing, softly blowing his hair, now a stark contrast from his old, slightly dreadlocked ponytail that she had last seen him with, from his face before playfully flicking his nose. "Hiding from your ugly mug," she grinned cheekily. Then, sadness veiled her face. "It's ma'am to you right now. You can have Evelyn when you take me back to your hotel for drinks and we end up staying up all night having sex and drinking mojitos. Yes, I still remember how you operate."  
"Sounds promising," Tiago smiled, hugging her close to him. "Really, where were you?"

She pulled away, scrubbing away the tears pricking her eyes. She needed this to break the routine of revelling in her own suffering, but was she ready to tell him? No. Not after the last male to know's reaction. "It's complicated."

* * *

"Right, can you show some restraint for two minutes, cheeky?" Evelyn brushed Tiago off as he attempted to follow her into the bathroom. She was armed to the teeth with the concealer sticks in her handbag, having worked out how to have this little happiness without having to relive it all.  
"No."  
"Well try your best, you naughty boy," she laughed at his dog-like persistence. As soon as she had brushed him off, she stepped into the bathroom and locked the door. Or so she thought.

* * *

"Tiago!" Evelyn gave a shriek of outraged modesty as the agent walked stark naked save for sparse boxer shorts into the room as she began peeling her blouse off. "I told you to stay out!"  
"There's nothing there that I won't see anyway. Besides, I needed a pee."  
She was beginning to wonder whether or not having sex with a man who was pretty much still a little kid on the inside was a good idea. "I told you not to-"  
Too late. He was already tracing the four-inch scar on the muscled area of her shoulder. "What on earth happened?"  
She lashed out. "You think that's it? Just a few gunshot scars? You're a child, Tiago! You don't know what real field work is! Do you want to see what happens? What they'll do to you given the opportunity? We're everyone's enemy; you just happen to live in a bubble! This is what happens when it all goes tits up!"  
"Evelyn, don't'-"

But she paid no attention. A bit of toying around with the fly on her trousers, and she let them drop to her ankles, revealing what could only be described as the utter mess that was the network of criss-crossed scars on her legs. Her left knee was utterly surrounded and covered by the surgical scars remaining of excessive surgery, along with ten or twelve shorter ones rather like what Tiago had noticed on her arm etching her thigh. Tears were biting at Evelyn's eyes now as she tore off her shirt, revealing the full extent of damage done to her arms, but beyond caring she let them fall.

"Evelyn..." Tiago caught hold of her, pulling her into his chest and caressing her hair. "What the- who did this to you? Is this-"  
"Whoever it was, they're dead by now. I can't even remember her bloody name, but...God, call me self-absorbed, but I nearly died...it hurts to think..." her voice was breaking in between gasping sobs. Things couldn't be safe for her if she let herself become emotionally attached to anyone and any comfort she could find in words or embrace was long gone. Anyone she told this or words to that effect to would almost always dismiss it as rubbish or an overreaction. Who cared? Nobody any more. Except one person.  
"How didn't I know this? Evelyn, what were you so afraid of? That I wouldn't care any more because of a few scars?"  
"Call me stupid, but yes. Apparently Matthew couldn't stand the sight of me after this because it all reminded him of all I did and all he despised. He gave up on me. Who wants a girlfriend who can't write because all her fingers are broken? Or who can't speak because her oesophagus melted into her stomach? His words exactly, may I add."  
"Let me guess, your husband?"  
"Yeah, that one."  
"I swear to god I'll kill that bastard," his choice of language earned Tiago a head-butt in the chest from Evelyn. "I would never dream of it, Evelyn. I love you, no matter what happens, nothing will ever change that. Now do you want to-" He gestured to the door. Evelyn pressed against him with all her strength until he was against the wall underneath her.  
"Blow the bed. There's a perfectly good shower right here."

There was always going to be one man who cared. Tiago. And it would stay that way until the day they died.


End file.
